Warder or Witchblade for counter strike/retaliation build?

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

I am building a Soldier focusing on counter strike, tankyness, and retaliation. As I see it, there are two good choices for a second class: Shaman (Warder) or Occultist (Witchblade). Help me choose!

In both builds, I plan to max the following Soldier skills: Counter Strike, Menhir’s Bulwark, Menhir’s Will, Shield Training, and Overguard. Excluding several 1-points into some skills, this puts you at level 39, leaving 90 skill points.

Option 1: Soldier + Shaman
Max Wendigo Totem + Bloodpact for good heals, some AoE vit damage, and good modifiers for bleed (from counter strike and other skills), as well as vitality and vitality decay (both of which are featured on the retaliation focused Affliction devotion).
This synergies well with Grasping Vines’ CC, which will get a few points.

Oak Skin provides great armor (more important than DA, as they will still hit you and suffer retaliation), +100% ret damage, life regen bonus, and pierce resist.

In terms of damage output, either Savagery or a non-maxed Cadence can work. I am leaning towards Savagery as it synergies better with itemization, and provides a bleed bonus.

For itemization, the Perdition set provides amazing retaliation damage. Later on, the empowered lvl65 version (Absolution) can be used, or I could switch to the Dawnguard set which provides amazing defensive bonuses (e.g. over 1k raw HP) as well as: +7 Counter strike, +5 Savagery, +5 Oak Skin, +2 Military Conditioning, and +2 Tenacity of the Boar. It’s (retaliation) damage is focused on lighting, which is buffed by Savagery but not much else.

In general, it seems fairly easy to itemize a tanky Warder focused on retaliation skills. Items/affixes which provide bonuses to my skills also tend to boost the correct types of damage.

Option 2: Soldier + Occultist
Max Blood of Dreeg for solid heal and regen, acid retalation damage, and OA. Always a great skill.
Sufficient skillpoints into CoF to make it work properly.
This leaves more skill points than the Warder choice, making it easier to invest more into Cadence, or even more defensive options.

The Acid Retalation stacks nicely with the must-have Perdition set. Other than that, itemization seems harder. For example, items with +Blood of Dreeg are most of the time orientated towards pet builds or poison builds. There are some good items, such as Swampdweller and Agony, but nothing extraordinary.
Alternatively, it might be fun to try an (empowered) Apothecary set, but it seems horribly underpowered?

One way to counter lack of itemization for Soldier + Occultist specifically is of course to just get a good Soldier set such as Markovian’s Fortress or Myrmidon Armor sets.

Overall, Warder seems the better choice, would you agree?
If so, would you suggest focusing on Cadence, Savagery, or something else?

EDIT:

A third alternative might be Demolitionist with Vindictive Flame + Ulzuins Wrath, Temper, and Blast Shield. Very skill point hungry though, but it might work.

2

But Fervered rage is fun

3

True… did you (or anyone else) try this in recent patches? I’ve done a Fervered rage retaliation build ages ago, but that was during the beta and balancing was very different.

I still really dislike that Counter Strike (and retaliation as well?) only triggers when they hit you instead of when they attack you. It makes no sense at all, as you are being punished severely for high DA. Fervered rage solves this.

4

Dreeg and other +% acid effects won’t boost acid retaliation damage: acid retaliation is only boosted by +% retaliation and +% acid retaliation effects. (Same for other elements.) CoF and anything else that reduces enemy acid resistance, however, will increase the amount of acid retaliation taken.

The Warder option is much stronger defensively due to shaman HP and wendigo totem. The Hetzer build at 24k+ hp and 60k+ retaliation is the best reference for this: it’s an extremely straightforward and effective build, except for glaring annoyances against a handful of enemies.

The Witchblade option gives you a lot more offensive options to deal with the enemies that retaliation builds don’t deal with well (primarily ranged and magic users), but will definitely prove squishier. Sigil and Dreeg combined still won’t provide nearly as much healing as wendigo totem does, and the recent nerfs to Tree of Life and Behemoth don’t help. You may need to include additional devotions like Wendigo and Scales to keep health topped off as a Witchblade retaliator.