Shaman or Nightblade?
More specifically, Shaman 2H Passives line+Health Aura vs Pneumatic Burst+Cunning Passive+Slow Aura.
I only plan on getting 20 Mastery for my sub-class so my character would remain Soldier-y.
Main damage type would be Physical with a little bit of Bleed and Trauma.
Shaman offers more synergy imo, especially if you keep the mastery low (Brute Force line, Heart of the Wild…).
NB has a heal and a debuff (Veil of Shadow), but offers little to enhance physical damage.
Is the Total Speed boost from Pneuma worth it for a slow-ass 2H weapon?
My plan was to stack Physical Damage and Attack Speed via gear+devotion to increase Cadence frequency.
i think not, but in the end it’s up to you 
but basically most of your AS will probably comes from gear at the end. PB is a great skill, but i don’t think it offsets the advantages Shaman provides : more health, more physical dmg, and 2H gear is more often designed for Shaman.
i’m currently leveling a 2H BM still in the early stages of the game, but he’s ultimately focused on physical, pierce and bleeding (which means he’ll use a sword).
again if you feel NB will fit your char better you don’t have to necessarily heed my advice
For 2h i prefer Shaman (Warder). Visualy maxed skills from Shaman tree are very good additional to Soldier class for 2h build. You can also attach some Devotion skills to Feral Hunger, Upheaval, Grasping Vines or Wendigo Totem.
http://grimcalc.com/build/1006-HCNXnh
Bad part is, with only 25 points in Shaman mastery, you wont have enough Spirit for jewellery and will see pretty noticeable stat loss in overal. So you must decide if you pump up more points into mastery or stat points will do the job.
If this is your first or second char, 2H Warder is pretty good choice for newbies and you can have decent char only with green (drop or reputation vendor - pick Kymon´s Chosen) items.
By all means, get OC… curse of frailty will lower both physical and bleed resist. Witchfire will give much appreciated attack speed (attack speed is very important for two handers), and will not convert away your physical damage untransmuted. You may also find bloody pox useful for triggering devotions.
Shaman is rather lightning-y in its bonuses to 2-handed stuff aside from bleed–those bonuses are wasted if you’re going straight physical. Although warders can achieve some pretty humongous HP pools.
agreed and 32 occultist gives access to armor of the guardian on top off blood of dreeg’s massive heal and OA boost, armor of the guardian alone could cap your acid resist in ultimate alone without any other source of resistance, it also gives 12% phys resist at max level too
Upheaval is great. Being able to use assassin mark and blind fury on cadence is very nice. Totem is also great. I love primal bond and mog pact is nice too. Super tanky build for sure.
Occultist would probably work well too. More damage output for sure. Blood of the dreeg is a great survivor ability skill as well.
I’m a little concerned about the nerf bat to cadence builds in the next patch. I don’t care what anyone says savagery is still very viable in ultimate at least on this build. I’m also a little worried about cof getting hit on the next patch. Warder may be the safer bet until we see some patch notes at least.
I would recommend shaman over nightblade, because dual wielding blade masters is usually better than two handed BMs.
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Occultist for simple raw power - curse of fraility and blood of dreeg are that good, also you can pick up Solael’s Witchfire for attack speed
Shaman can be nice for Upheavel and Feral Hunger, plus some nice defensive skills
Nightblade doesn’t add anything that Occultist can’t do better.