Hello all! I came to share with you a rundown of the build I've created and am enjoying right now. Be warned, I haven't maxed my character yet, and this is pretty early game so far, I'm in act 3 at lvl 36. I had this idea for the build as soon as I realized what shield and pistol does. Pistol attacks are different depending on what item you have equipped on other side, for example a pistol and a sword will have you shoot from afar but up close you will use sword and every 3rd? attack you do a bullet spray. With a shield, your pistol becomes a close range shotgun and I want to say about a 110 degree cone in front of you. As soon as I saw this I thought about a build that focuses on trying to CC as many enemies as possible with your abilities, and first choice was frost, due to the fact there is a tree that benefits from frost in 3rd ring.

So for passive trees I went down Sentinel, grabbed Backline Raider for the increased attack speed, then cycled ring so Ranger was in front of Precise Strikes node, I went down to Persistence Hunting and overwhelming barrage (which gives increased stun and freeze chance and Persistence increase damage to those that are impaired. Then I grabbed Archion's Teachings and each of its subnodes so my projectiles are doubled and have higher crit chance and damage. Then I rotated my final ring so I have White Arrow on one side of ranger and Exorcist on the other, Now I went down exorcist first because Tenet Points increase survivability a bit, and I grabbed all 3 key nodes in it, unfortunately Headhunter is bugged and will not always give stacks. So if you want to do this build maybe go White Arrow first, but it has no survivability options, unlike Exorcist. I also grabbed each of the nodes behind the key nodes. Then for some survivability I went and grabbed Feast for the Crows in the warmonger and the attack leech node off of it too so I can heal from my damage.

After that I have 14 points to spend down White Arrow. I plan on going 4 to the left first to grab Wintry Hail and its subnode, and then 4 to the right to grab Hungry Stalactite and its subnode then 3-4 points to go up to Acute Tracking and its subnode. With the final 2-3 points (depending on pathing thru White Arrow) I will get Bestial Frenzy in Warmonger so I do more damage for more enemies nearby. That is the passive tree route I'm going for.

Honestly, you can probably pull this off with pistol and X secondary weapon but I chose shield for the shotgun aoe.

For my skills I am currently going for Phantom Blades, Mark of Impurity, Gunslingers Brand, Wailing Arrows, "Avenger" Autoturret, I have not unlocked slot 5 but either Evasion or the Sniper ability for that one.

Phantom Blades 10 modifier points: Bladed Blizzard for 100% frost damage, Loyalty of the Blades, Bladeslinger, Immobilizing Bola for guaranteed Persistence Hunting bonus. Then Vorpal Blades and/or Needles in Perpetuity/Gutting Wheel for final 2 points for damage increase.

Gunslingers Brand: Order Through Chaos for scaling damage per hit, Ordered Discord, Leave No Witnesses, Hipfire Headshots, and Traversal then depending on if you are fighting a Boss or just regular mobs you go Flak Handcannon for mobs and Friendly Fire and Wild Gunsman for bosses, make sure to target boss first then adds, so crits on others damage boss as well.

Mark of Impurity: Guilt By Association so it spreads after killing the target, Minimal Resistance for more freezes, Inescapable Fate for duration then spend final 4 points on the other Damage modifying ones, unfortunately numbers are not included atm, I did put a feedback report that they need to include numbers on all modifiers and have all numbers included in stats on right.

Wailing Arrows: Call of the First archers, basically doubles width of the AOE, Vanquisher's Overlook so enemy amount increases damage, Shattering Arrowheads, Force Bow, then spend last 4 freely depending on your playstyle.

"Avenger" Autoturret: Ok so currently the names of 2 of the ones are swapped so I'll say the description: Turret can now rotate and auto-target enemies (currently called flak-launcher but should be Autonomous Sensors) and get the other one as well for damage in area of effect, then get Sleepless Sentry for duration, Twin Repeater/Ballistic Reinforcements (the damage increase isn't in description of Twin Repeater so either one), Wild Splinters for status, and final point wherever you want.

Haven't thought of what to do exactly for 5th skill, sorry.

That's my current/future build that I'm currently really enjoying, hopefully it works at max level just as well. Keep in mind in the game, unless you have the passive tree talent for being able to do 2 status ailments at a time, you will only be able to do 1, and if you have a bunch of random ailment damage types from items I think its just random based on chance for those types. So try to go for frost items, the stats for this build are up to you honestly, but try to get at least 20% status chance for frost. Also there are multiple stats that are essentially the same as a main stat but won't affect your stat priority and are given at the same exact ratios, for example Status Ailment Chance Score +15 is the same as 15 wisdom in terms of how it affects your status chance but it won't increase your damage like a main stat would. For your weapon, be careful because a weapon may spawn with a %Status Chance of a type that the weapon itself does not possess, try to get a frost damage and frost/elemental status chance on your gun.

Edit: I will be reposting a complete full version when I max out and have everything figured out, but I learned something which opens up a lot of options: Pistol Shield is both MELEE and RANGED weapon for skills, meaning you can learn and use all skills that fall under melee as well not just the rogue ones. (ones that require pistol bow or dagger) Also realized that the cap isn't level 50 but way more than that, which opens up my build a whole lot more.