colma86

Priest of Wael + monk is a staple for my runs. Tanky af and support for days. Berserker and devoted would be good with it too. Even on PotD I always dual wield, don’t need to tank what’s dead...Toutilo’s Palm is a good fit though, just make sure to take dual wield and weapon and shield passives. IMO shapeshifter fits best with berserker. Frenzy gives your animal form +5 might, +5 con, +2 armor pen and +2 armor. It really helps make up for losing weapon and armor stats. Also, all of the barbarian passives like carnage, thick skin, bloody slaughter, bloodlust, one stands alone, etc. still work in animal form, so makes sure to get them. I’ve done PotD with his one too, not really a main tank though. Edit: for shift duration very little in the game outlasts cat form, if it does go wolf next. Cat is best dps but wolf isn’t too far behind. At max int you’ll get ~45 seconds duration for each form. FWIW I’d run 10 str/10 or 8 con/max dex/max per/max int/3 res on both.

Not sure how kosher mods are considered here but... I've had Xoti as Shattered Pillar/Priest of Wael (take that cannon) as a staple of every run I've done via the unity console mod (dead easy to use, takes all of 30 seconds to reroll a party member stats and all then just pops you to the standard reroll process a la taverns). In all the teams/builds I've played around with that combo is hands down gonna carry if mistakes are made or the rest of the party is trash. 10/10 melee off tank/dps and support for PotD. I've done it with several weapons setups, dunno about most optimal but my feels-good favorite was dual wielding rapiers and Sungrazer/Toutlio's Palm as second set. Honestly the only NPC that I actually keep the same on a run is Tekehu if I use him. FWIW the unity mod can change any ranger class's pet to a ghost pet if you don't want the dead weight around or let anybody be a gunhawk or watershaper.

My defacto point spread for pretty much every build is: 10 str 8 con max dex max per max int 3 resolve I think the only time might is worth points is if you're planning on dealing damage with spells...you mentioned Sage which could go either way haha.

I recommend multiclassing for shifter. Berserker/Shifter is the best I've found so far, doing PotD with it now. Can't say it competes with Berserker/Skald or something like that, but it's still a good time. All the berserker passives apply (carnage, bloody slaughter, thick skinned, bloodlust). Start fight, buff (usually regen of some kind)>frenzy (30% hit to crit, +5 might, +5 con, +2 pen, +2 armor)>cat form>chunks fly. With gear, party buffs and passives (pally, chanter, priest) and Hot Razor Skewers I swing from 13 to 19.5 penetration in the combat log with a 1.3s recovery time without the special cat form ability (which puts it to 1.2s) at level 10 lol. If you start taking a beating just cycle forms to heal and losing some dps.