Hello people. It’s been a while since i participated here in the forums. I took a long break from the game but i’m returning now. And i decided to try hardcore mode for the first time. I chose Occultist for my first class and i’m focusing on Sigil of Consumption for now. The second class choice is still open. I’m looking for tips as i’m pretty much starting from zero again.
What damage type i should focus on? Vitality? Chaos? And which secondary class would be best? Any build suggestions?
Shaman and vitality. Vitality conjurers are some of the sturdiest builds in the game.
If you want melee then physical witch blade. Can’t go wrong with physical damage.
For budget Sigil focus I’d play Vitality Cabalist. The key item is Vampiric Bonewall
There are a lot of accessible items for Sigils so itemization could look as follows: Sigil Items
You can later farm Dark One’s setup which converts part of Sigil’s Chaos damage.
Later you get Radaggan and switch to Acid (natural choice because the set converts a lot of Sigil damage to Acid) or stubbornly stay with Vitality [1.1.9.1] Cabalist 12-13 Sigils. 100 SR. 150-170 5m 20s. Crate of Entertainment. Ravager. Avatar and other bosses
Or Sentinel:
If not planning Radaggan perhaps you could stay with Dark One’s and then Conjurer is an option as ya1 said to have this silly healing from Wendigo Totems. But for me Sigil focus means getting -recharge for it which Radaggan (and Trozan) provides.
If playing Conjurer you could theoretically switch from Dark One’s to Trozan once you farm it but I don’t know if Trozan Conjurer is appropriate for Hardcore.
Just go pets conjurer (any kind really) and forget about death. Just my 2 polish zlotys.
Good luck! 
GP.
I mostly chose Occultist to keep Dark One open as a choice. It will depend on what i can find. Radaggan is definitely something that is on my radar but getting all the pieces is going to be quite difficult and luck based. Obsidian Tremor Witchblade also sounds neat but I’ll probably focus on vitality because of those MIs and Dark One.
I’m not going to be playing Pets as it also depends too much on specific sets. I played Pets a lot but i prefer Hybrid builds as they are more fun and engaging. They tend to be too inconsistent for the late game stuff (post ultimate Korvaak and key dungeons) though. And they got hurt really badly by the nerfs to Pet items and the removal of the crit damage bonus from the component skills.
vitality shaman/conjurer/ritualist/archon is so stupid strong you can go from 1-100 with basically swarm and vines only, while being basically completely immortal (basic common sense/stats taken into consideration ofc)
grab yourself some swarm MIs, bonespike, korvan casque, and the FG groble offhand that converts it 100% from phys to vitality, and go nuts
when i did this last, using basic obtainable items; swarm was ticking for like 10k+ on ultimate, providing me with insane healing in the process
the transition into endgame is then also one of the most comfy, since dark one set is the easiest thing to farm in the world, letting you be more than SR farm capable incase you wanted to do something else than dark one like valguur or something else entirely
you have to really screw up/intentionally try to die against regular content on a vitality shaman based build - like doing Celestials too early, or getting too brave too soon thinking your zillion lifesteal will keep you alive with 0 resist or while pulling the entire map in an SR chunk etc
only thing more cheesy for HC would be a chonky Warder/Warlord, or pet conjurer