Need some serious help

My first character was this templar, I've been trying to go for a sort of Ice Paladin "Deathknight" kinda theme; Armor, Energy Shield, and plenty of Ice spells, tanky but not much movement. not looking for fancy tricks of teleporting or minions unless really necessary.
Unfortunately I keep getting bodied at Solaris temple Act 8 (and plenty of times prior) and have come to realize its time for a change. Luckily I have a full passive reset I've yet to spend (mostly out of fear). Pretty sure I chose the wrong ascendancy too.
pretty sure bitterdream would be up my alley but I dont have one. I've really only played this casually for the story and gameplay, haven't gotten much into the trading or crafting.
Can anyone help?
https://imgur.com/a/2wiavkd
Last bumped on Aug 18, 2023, 9:07:38 AM
I wrote some tips below that fit your theme.
These tips won't get you to the hardest endgame content, but it should help you keep going while fitting your theme.

I suggest changing your Ascendancy to Inquisitor.
Your Ascendancy is currently Guardian which focuses on Defences (Armor, Energy Shield, Block / Spell Block) and supporting Allies or Minions.
Hierophant focuses on Spells, Mana and Totems, and Inquisitor focuses on Attack/spellcasting hybrid, Critical Strikes and Consecrated Ground.
You can change your Ascendancy by not having any Ascendancy Points allocated, and then re-running any difficulty of the The Lord's Labyrinth to the end.

Skills that fit your theme:
- (Vaal) Glacial Hammer
Use Ancestral Call Support to hit multiple enemies at once.
- Ice Crash, but it's very slow so I don't recommend it.
- (Vaal) Cold Snap, it really suits a Deathknight.
For extra flair, there is a cosmetic effect you can buy that turns it into a grasping hand.

Other (secondary?) skills:
- Frozen Legion
- Frost Bomb
- Vortex. You can bind it on your left-click to auto-cast it while moving around

Movement skills (pick one):
- Leap Slam with Faster Attacks Support
- Frostblink

Auras:
- Determination (Armour)
- Frostbite with Blasphemy Support (Reduces enemy Cold Resistance around you)
- (Vaal) Discipline (Energy Shield)
- Hatred (More Cold Damage)
On the skill tree you can go to Sovereignty wheel for Mana Reservation Efficiency. Don't expect to run all of the above auras, choose the ones you want.

Gear:
Armour/Energy Shield hybrids.
Notable Uniques:
- Vaal Caress makes Vaal Skill Gems extremely strong (It also makes the non-Vaal Skill that is inside the gem stronger, but the Support gems that you put in gloves will be slightly weaker)
- Rime Gaze for dealing lots of Cold Damage over Time

Weapons:
Staves or Sceptres are fitting. Be sure to change your skill tree to match your weapon.
Notable Uniques:
- Frostbreath (attacks)
- Taryn's Shiver (spells)

Resistances:
- Prioritize getting your Elemental Resistances (Fire, Cold and Lightning) to 75%
- Try to get your Chaos Resistance to 0% or higher

Effective Life Pool:
- Try to get 300 Life every Act (2400+ Life on Act 8)
- Try to aim towards a bare minimum of 150% increased maximum Life from your passive skill tree. You can change these numbers because you can also invest more into Energy Shield than Life.

Example gem Links:
Try to link your main skills to as much strong support gems as possible.
4-Link: (Vaal) Cold Snap - Bonechill - Hypothermia - Cruelty OR Controlled Destruction
4-Link: (Vaal) Glacial Hammer - Ancestral Call OR Multistrike OR Melee Splash - Elemental Damage with Attacks - Added Cold Damage
2-Link: Frostbite - Blasphemy
2-Link: Leap Slam - Faster Attacks. You can also add more links to this like Endurance Charge on Melee Stun
No need to link: Frostblink and any of the other Auras.
Thank you so much, I got the required skills and some chad donated most of the equipment, while looking for chest piece and boots to go with it I stumbled across geofri's sancturary and death's door boots and it sounds like they'd work well on paper. though I don't have the boots yet the same man who donated the equipment also had geofri's sanctuary; though it dosen't work the way I thought it would. zealot's oath dosen't add life regen to energy shield: it converts your life regen to energy shield. though I've yet to respec my skill tree I've already noticed a huge difference from the change in gems alone, though I also thought of using Ice Bite instead of Cruelty; or even better in conjunction with it if I can craft into a 5-link. anyways the big reason I'm making this reply is for advice on the skill tree. I've been giving it a careful look over (I only have one full rest afterall) and I'm noticing plenty of nodes that will do me good or atleast sound like they would; some for what they do and some for the mastery. I decided to go with Taryn's Shiver as my weapon. My general skilltree shopping list is (in no particular order) as follows:

sanctum of thought
combat stamina
divine shield
glancing blow
steelwood stance
tireless
counterweight
devotion
sovereignty
safeguard
asylum
essence infusion
quick recovery

though I don't believe I have enough skill points to fill them all out. What should I prioritize?

edit: I should also mention I have the following skilltree jewels incase inserting them would be beneficial:





Last edited by DramusIceDragon on Aug 18, 2023, 9:11:06 AM

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