The Beastgunner - A crossbow hybrid spirit walker

https://pobb.in/2oK5uPgYoky7

This was my SSF league starter, so it's not optimized by any means, but it cleared all the quest-pinnacle bosses.

I wanted to play a proper hybrid character rather than just going full zoo. Taking all the hybrid companion nodes left me pretty point starved and unable to fully invest in defenses, so I decided to go with the crossbow instead of a melee weapon as a high damage base for Catha’s Balance. The crossbow offers a ton of utility like armor break and stun and also stays in the huntress area of the tree to allow for a parry focused weapon swap. The key components of the build are:

-Culling Strike: The big weakness of 3-companion builds is clear speed. By culling normal mobs at 90+% with chaining proj and armour explosions, the shark/bear generally go straight for rares/magic packs.

-Bleed IV: Armor Piercing rounds/bear/aura beast all inflict incision and can’t consume it, leading to larger bleeds from the Shark. Incision is also a physical damage shock with the Thousand Cuts node.

-Herald of Blood: Minion DoTs count as your kills, so you get explosions from everything that the shark doesn’t one shot.

I decided to have some fun with sharing my builds rather than making full guides, but if anyone has any questions, I'm happy to answer.