Dire wolf gives it more life, but it can survive plenty well without those extra points, especially with a nice merc there thanking too. Maxing Grizzly is used for the damage, which is why some Shaman builders will max HoW over Oak Sage. You basically use Fissure on everything that is not FI, and use Volcano on everything period, while Grizzly tanks and helps Volcano and Merc out with the DPS vs FI monsters.

Considered making one of these when I ripped the first dagger barb. Class it up and carry an Insight stick and use an Act 5 merc with Lawbringer.

Infernorb Sorc. Inferno and Frozen Orb sorc w/ Flamebellow as weapon. Done

I would love to see you make one eventually, very fun to watch IMO because the skills are visually impressive and Grizzly is badass Hobbes was originally going to be a Shaman but I wanted to go a route I had never tried before.

Anyways, I know Stabby is the priority now and for a while, but I would love to follow a Shaman wt in the future

Yeah, Stabby is grinding. I messed up my NM Meph map, so I'm grinding Cave until I get a white Mithril Point to drop.

20 grizzly 100% waste.

Well this obviously cannot be true, as I have done the build and found the Grizzly to be a great help

You are entitled to your opinion as always of course, however I can fully attest to the usefulness of 20 points in Grizzly on this build.

If you are using grizzly to do dps sure, but synergies are probably more value if that's the case.

There is no synergy for Grizzly damage, just maxing Grizzly itself adds to it. That and of course HoW Spirit. I found Grizzly to be a crucial part of the build quite frankly, he keeps the heat off merc allowing the merc to stay alive and give auras/do DPS, he also does some pretty nice DPS himself and stuns enemies quite frequently with his Smite attack. Volcano is half physical damage, but Volcano alone will make killing all the FI in hell very slow-going. Even when you throw a good merc in there, it's not too fast. It's not like the Grizzly raises it up to c/c class killing speed, but every little bit of DPS helps when you're talking about these less-than-OP builds like Shamans.

Meant synergies for fissure, but I get your point. It's 10% dmg per lvl for grizzly wouldn't more fissure dmg be just better? Even if you consider immunes etc. or aren't you a ''Shaman'' if grizzly isn't maxed?