Life/Block/Not dying build

Hiya there.

New player here. Mostly enjoying the game although I am currently roadblocked at High Templar Avarius. Sadly as it's a linear arc I can't just go and explore elsewhere for a bit and them come back when I am bigger and meaner. I very much stuck. Oh well.

So I figured I may as well post here and see if I can work out any of the kinks in my build and see if that gives me any clever ideas.

Core concept:
Lose fights in a slow & controlled manner. I've noticed this game doesn't so much have a 'difficulty curve' - more a 'difficulty drunken scribble'. You can be wandering around the area happily one-shotting everything you meet bored out of your mind, then you bump into a harbinger or boss fight and get smeared across the scenery in the blink of an eye. So my logic is to build a character where that happens in a slower and more controlled way giving me time to react to such things by triggering other powers/flasks/just running away/etc rather than just dying and going 'bugger'. So the idea here isn't about finding the best way to win encounters - it's about optimizing when you start losing them.

In:
Lots of +max life. Picking up every single +life passive will have to wait until late game if ever, but the core character development involves walking around the passive map picking up most of the notable/unique buys. This pretty much translates as a tour of the central 'ring' linking between classes and collecting the core abilities of all of them.
Lots of +block. Block events stop attacks & let me hang other things on them (specifically, attacks with mana/hp regen linked) so grabbing as much block as I can sensibly get seems in order as well.
Elemental Resistance. Less damage from scary magical attacks also sounds big and clever.
Defensive powers. Anything that triggers when I get hit/damaged/etc. So Fortify, Tempest Shield, Reckoning, Riposte, Vengeance are all in order.

Out:
Anything that stops working if I stop winning the fight. I'm sure I can do heinous things with stuff like life drain attacks etc. But I am also introducing failure modes - if I stop killing things I lose my life regen.
Minions. Golems, zombies, totems are all very handy. I like them. BUT they suffer from a similar flaw to the above - if I start losing the fight, all my minions die. Which makes me worse off than when I started the fight, because they have stopped doing damage and drawing aggro.

Core buys:
Mind over Matter: 30% less life loss? I'll have that thanks. Running out of mana won't kill me.
Battle Rouse: 3% of damage taken as mana regen? Sounds handy.
Testudo: +mana for blocking? Cool. otoh, it's rather out on it's own and a flat rate mana gain might become trivial at higher levels.

Flaws:
No movement. There are many cool passive buys and only so many points to buy them with. Something has to give. This is one of the sacrifices. No sprinting across world maps or kiting bosses.
Insta kill is still kinda instant. Lots of life helps when you accidentally run into crowds or just heal through a lot of boss fights. But their big scary attack that just kills you stone dead still kills you stone dead. This is compounded by the lack of movement noted above - you ain't dodging easily.
The best defense is a good offense...and this isn't a DPS centric build. Offense comes mostly from gems. Whilst i'm not yet having much trouble with mobs, I am noticing the lack of big attacks to take huge chunks out of bosses.
Jack of all trades, master of none. The notable +max life passives are pretty much scattered to the four winds across all the classes making it hard to specialize/maximize anything.
PvE build. The focus is on not getting accidentally dead in normal gameplay so it may be quite weak outside that in PvP.


So there we have it (after a wall of text. Ops.).
I'm interested in peoples thoughts, reactions and ideas as to how to get the most from it.



Other notes:
Primary attack is currently Lightning Strike. There is no reason it has to be, but it seemed like a nice all-purpose skill. Lots of attacks means at close range I should be hitting things in the face with 7 attacks at once - each of which should get extra damage, splash effects, etc depending how I build it. In crowd scenes I have plenty of attacks to go around. Except it doesn't seem to be working quite as expected. It doesn't seem to stack as expected with Herald of Thunder, and i'm not sure if I am getting multiple parallel attacks against a single target.
I'm open to other ideas, but havn't yet found anything that seems to work as well. Maybe that's simply because the gems I use for it have been nicely leveled. I'm open to suggestions.

I'm assuming I can trigger multiple effects from the same event, as long as each of them is different. Ie Riposte, Tempest Shield, Vengeance & Reckoning can all be triggered at once by a single successful block.

This seems to have accidentally become an 'attacks everywhere' build. Vengeance, Tempest Shield & Reckoning are all AOE counter attacks, Lighting Strike is a nest of 7, etc. I'm open to suggestions as to the best ways to maximize these.



Cheers, and thanks for reading!

Sat down and worked out what I think is a good gem loadout for the above build:


Body Armour:
Tempest Shield (B) & Vengeance (R)
With Life Leech (R), Fortify (R), Mana Leech (G), Bleed (R) & Added Lightning (B) support.
3 Red, 1 Blue + misc.

This is the big 6 gem link, so it gets the best defense powers. Gems listed in order of assumed importance if they won't all fit. At some point I will pick up Fortify through ascendancy and it can go. Probably be hard to get good armour with perfect gem slots, so some mixing and matching of the support effects with whatever will fit may have to happen.


Hat/Gloves/Shoes:
I don't think it matters which set goes in which item, so they can be moved around depending on which fits best.

Reckoning(R) & Riposte(G)
w/ Life Leech (R) & Mana Leech (G)
2 Red, 2 Green.

Molten Strike (R)
w/Item Rarity (B), Multistrike (G), Increased AoE Support (B) & Chance to Bleed (R)
2 blue, 1 red, 1 green.

Herald of Thunder (B) & Vengeance (R)
With Life Leech (R) & Mana Leech (G)
2 Red, 1 blue, 1 Green.

Herald of Thunder (B)
w/ Added Lightning (B), Added Cold (G) & Added Fire (R)
2 Blue, 1 red, 1 green.

Vengeance can go in with Herald of Thunder until a 5link+ body armour is available, at which point the last set can be used. Most support gems don't work with Herald Of Thunder as it doesn't 'hit' anything itself so it just gets +dam stuff. Not sure if there are some better choices there.


Sword/Shield:

Item Rarity or Increased AoE (B) (Depending which isn't in use with Molten Strike.), Ancestral Warchief (R) & Conductivity (B)

Summon Lightning Golem (B) & Cast When Damage Taken (R) w/ Poachers Mark (G)

Most of the time I will probably want the better treasure drops from the Item Rarity effect on the core attack, but this keeps Increased AoE getting XP and available ready for those situations when you really need to pull out the stops.


Net Effect:
Lots of defensive powers that all trigger attacks that all leech health and mana back every time you get attacked/injured.

A bias towards lightning damage because that's what Tempest Shield does but for no other reason.



Ancestral Warchief and the Golem simply because they are too handy to do without entirely.

I think I misread Lightning Strike slightly. From a closer and careful reading of the description it might be a melee attack which then spawns lightning bolts that go off to attack other targets. Is Molten Strike a better choice? With buffed AoE will it's splash damage from the projectiles hit the main target, or is there a better tool for the job?
I liked Lightning strike because it kept with lightning damage, but if it doesn't let me spam lots of attacks against a single target (ie bosses) it isn't really what I am looking for in a versatile core attack skill.