[New player] Need help with my Death Knight (Crucible)

Hi,

I bought Grim Dawn in the GOG sale in early December and really like it.
As I prefer melee chars, I started a Soldier and made it a Deathknight after reading some tips on the forums.

I farmed Krieg’s Set on Elite for an Aether/Physical hybrid build, which helped quite a bit. Right now I’m kinda hitting a wall with it though.

Here’s the grimtools link:
htt ps://ww w.grimtools.com/calc/lNkxQkd2 (remove spaces, can’t post links yet)

As I read sword and board is the playstyle to go and apparently supposed to be so powerful that it “facerolls” and “trivializes” the content with adequate gear.
I went up to 100 with a 2handed Forcewave build because I didn’t have the gear to support the S&B playstyle and it works quite well in the campaign. Right now I’m doing Ugdenbog on Ultimate and don’t face much trouble.

I have an Edge of Sanity in the stash (see second weapons tab) and thought it would be good enough to try out a switch, but my shield is lackluster (Vanguard of the Legion is the best I have).
Unfortunately it didn’t work out as planned. I didn’t die to trash before and I didn’t die to trash with S&B, but against the enemies that really count the durability was only slightly better (of course I respecced the build into full shield support). The (real) DPS took a HUGE hit though and killspeed went from decent to sluggish. Sheet DPS was 1/3 of my 2h build. The added durability doesn’t really help because I need to hit enemies 3 times as much and can’t even kite without Forcewave. Powerful enemies like Grava’Thul still can’t be tanked AND can’t be killed relatively fast because of atrocious DPS. It was a complete desaster and I respecced into 2h Forcewave again.

Campaign is fine but I kinda die randomly from time to time (oneshot or DoT that kills me in 2seconds) and can’t keep up with the crucible.
I can’t even do 150-170 on NORMAL!! reliably. I vaporize all the standard elites, bosses and vanilla nemesises, but I regularly die to being ganked by Ultra bosses (namely any combination of 2-3 Grava’Thuls and Reaper of the Losts).
On Elite I can comfortably go to 150 unless I get Rashalga on last wave, who can randomly oneshot me from full health and ruin my whole run.

This is really riling me up and massively frustrating me.

What exactly are the requirements to switch to S&B and not lose a ton of killspeed? Do I need to farm for Mythical Mindwarp or Warborn Gavel (have the rest of the set) and skip the transition until then?
What can I do to improve my performance against Ultra Bosses like Grava’Thul, Rashalga and Reaper especially in Crucible when they gank you in multiples?
I could respec my devotions into full defense, but that would be so costly regarding the damage.
Seems so disheartening to not even being able to RELIABLY complete Crucible on Normal. Just died 3 times in a row. I can’t imagine how I’m supposed to clear that on Gladiator.

When uploading I noticed that my pants kinda suck and that I’m still wearing the slith ring but I didn’t find any better and I can’t cap my resists without the ring. Amulet could be replaced as well but that ruins my resists too.

Any help with progressing towards beating crucible would be much appreciated, thanks.

PS: Just got oneshot from Zaldarin on Challenger wave 110 from 16.000 life to 0. This is so obnoxious.

Gear and devotions are the key to success.
Maybe this build will give you some inspiration, particularly shield version:
http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=78280

Krieg set is intended to be used with Aether, so respec to Aether and get fun

As above.

For a quick fix: You need more DA + stun resist.

1)Switch Ulo, the Keeper of the Waters devotion with Solem Watcher
2)You lack a medal component. Place a wardstone in the medal which makes room for a leathery hide component in the helmet
3)Change your ring augments to either hammerfall powder or survivors ingenuity
4)Change the amulet augment to survivors perseverance and change the boot component to a anti venom salve make up for the lost resistances.

Link: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/nZon0mGV

Bonus)If you have the recipes for them you can replace your ring components with Runebound Topaz’s, the anti venom salve with Ugdenbog Leather and the wardstone with a tainted heart.

Thanks for the input, I will rearrange the augments + components a bit and switch the devotion.

Regarding respeccing to full Aether, I did that and it sucked (incl. devotions etc.). Unfortunately I have neither the gear to convert Physical to Aether in a relevant fashion nor Mindwarp or the Aether shield.
Only passable weapon I have is Edge of Sanity and the result was really terrible compared to 2h Forcewave.