A Call to the Builders Extraordinaire

To the Mods: I'm posting this in each class forum because it's not really class-specific. If you'd prefer it go into a different forum or something, feel free to delete and move whatever posts you want. I understand.

Hey gang... I'm nobody. No honestly, I'm nobody. I'm sure you can ignore my post and my request for help and literally nothing would happen and no one would care.

But if you care, I have a humble request.

I'm looking for some good build ideas that *DON'T* cost hundreds of EX. I don't mean "starter builds"... I've played with plenty of those. I mean builds that can actually rock the faces of the end game bosses, guardians, shapers, elders, whatever. Starter builds always hit a wall. If you are interested in helping me, I implore you to read on.

I've been playing the game for a very long time (took breaks and returned, obviously) and have managed to get *right to* some of the end game bosses but no matter what my characters just fail. Not for lack of skill (I'm sure many of you will claim)... but because I don't have *quite enough* of something. Just barely not enough health not to get one-shotted, or just barely not enough Chaos res, or just barely not quite enough DPS, or evade, or armour, or whatever is required.

I love this game. Honestly, I do. I used to play way back when every time you used a movement skill you would desync from the server and loved it even then. But I don't have the time to put in just to farm until my face melts just to get a couple more EX.

There are so many builds out there that I want to try, but I look at the POB and almost every item is 20+ EX... or sometimes there will be that one crucial item that the entire build revolves around and even in standard it costs 50 EX.

Yes, I can craft, but because I can't spend days and days farming (My wife would tell you I play too much as it is), I just don't have the currency to really craft what I need. I actually spent some time and currency trying to craft and ended up with pitiful failures every time. It is just agonizing.

I've got a handful of EX (around 30) and I've worked very hard on my top characters to be able to *MODESTLY* make it through most maps, but it's like when I get to the "end"... I hit a wall that just will not relent and the only explanation I can come up with is that my builds just aren't quite strong enough - and that I need to spend 25 EX on a new single item. Is this how you guys do it?... farm for months for the EX you need to replace *ONE* item at a time?

Look, I know I'm nobody. But I truly love this game and really want to see and accomplish some of that end game stuff.

Can anybody help?