I just started playing this over the weekend, and have an Occultist to level 14 or so right now. I have no idea how it compares to other classes, but I'll give my take on it.What other class and skills you rolling with? I've got four characters so far and the occultist just feels like a gimp compared to the others. I only have it to 10 or 11, mainly due to not knowing what to pick with it. I was going to probably wait til Arcanist to sub, but if something works decent now I'll give it a shot.
I sub-classed as Nightblade, which sort of forces me into a melee roll, which is probably not the best option for an Occultist, but I haven't found a gun that even comes close to competing with some of the melee weapons I have. Prior to subclassing, I had sort of gone for the pet build, so my only substantial points are in raven, hellhound, and that eyeball thing that dots them. And then a couple of points into the buff that adds chaos damage to your weapons. So coupled with dual-wield from Nightblade and the flurry of knives throw, that's pretty much all I have right now. The hellhound is pretty beefy, and the nuke from the raven is higher than the damage I do myself, per hit. And if I'm facing a bunch of creatures or a tougher one, I throw that eye at them and it does like 190 damage over 5 seconds. There is no recast delay on that one, and it doesn't cost a lot, so I can spam a bunch of those out there and as long as I avoid them for 5 seconds, between the dots and my pets, shit pretty much dies. (EDIT to add, I don't normally do that, I typically wade in and melee, but just saying if there are a ton of mobs or tough ones, I can use that tactic.) Boss mobs are a bit tougher because I don't have much burst dps, and if they have any sort of ae ability my pets die, but technically I can kite them around with that eye if I have the room.
Like I said, no idea how that compares to other classes, but I typically play a fighter so I wanted something a bit different this time around. I'm enjoying the game quite a bit, all things considered. I sort of despair over the fact that I'm pretty sure getting to the upper tiers of skills is going to entail playing the game multiple times on harder settings, and as I posted months ago in this thread, I'm tired as fuck of that game mechanic after Diablo III. I want to be able to get max level on one play through, or at least close to it, depending upon how many side quests and farming runs I do. But that requires making more game zones, which means more money, so unfortunately I'm probably stuck with it for a long time to come in this sort of game.