Want to keep playing, but I'm hitting frustrating walls...

Just a side note - your "Death Gyre" ring has Added Damages to ATTACKS. Spells are not attacks.
Everything is either an SPELL or ATTACK. Fire Storm is a SPELL, so these bonuses (from the ring) won't affect them.

You also want to focus more on Spell Damage on your Wand, more than Critical Strike Chance for Spells.

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It's kind of shocking to hear that. Pub parties are such a mess with all the zombies and firestorms that its nearly impossible to tell whose doing what damage.

haha! this is very true - I love this image!

But if your party is only 2 members including yourself, it's a little easier to tell.

As a word of warning unless you like exploring and creating characters over and over again through trial and error I recommend reading a few character guides that are in-depth and explain why they do what they do.

You don't have to follow the guides word to word but if your going to create your own build, learning all of the mechanics and generally good things to do for a build first would save alot of time.

For example, if you want to be a firestorm + summoner build, you can look up a build that uses firestorm and a summoner build. Read up in the guide all mechanics on what makes both good, and then combine them together.

You also never go full energy shield usually without getting chaos inoculation.

I know everyone wants to create your own build because "following guides is lame." But that requires for you to actually study up mechanics and actually sit down and think about things and compare numbers/reading a ton of information/optimization of things. Which anyone can do but it takes time and alot of effort.