End-game advice

Looking for some help here. Got frustrated to the point where I'm basically pacing, wondering if I can even play this game anymore. Here's where I'm at:

What do I do if I can't complete waystones? How do I get to the point where I can do waystones? Shouldn't level 1 waystones be accessable to everyone, and higher tier waystones be what separates the good from the bad? I'm really scratching my head on this and in the past few hours have become so incredibly frustrated by the fact that it doesn't appear I'll be able to play the game after completing the campaign, period. This is about a 180 from how I felt two days ago which was nothing short of pure ephoria over the game and character/skill/gear/spell depth/options. I went from "I found the game I'll be spending hundreds to thousands of hours on in the coming years" to "welp... nevermind"

I'm just plain stuck with no clear path to transition to the end game. What should I do? Just farm campaign maps over and over? Like act1-2 stuff that I can reliably do? Because I already spent a half day or more doing that when I realized I had a gear/skill problem - and that yielded no return on time investment.


Background (don't read wall-of-text unless you want, it's going to sound like complaining):
Finished campaign today, the last half of act3 was wrecking me two days ago so I spent about a half day trying to farm/craft and work on my gear. After crafting hundreds of pieces, farming hundreds of items (with about 90% bonus to rarity) I ended up with 1 small upgrade. Realizing this is not going to net me any results with any resemblance of efficiency I decided to tredge on in the campaign and just finish it through sweaty brute force. My hope? That waystones and end-game would give me a better avenue to progression. Everything was oneshotting me so I solo pulled mobs painfully, slowly, all the way to the end. A dozen tries on last boss and got it.

K... I did it! I got past the sweaty part so I can enjoy easing into some end-game. Waystones....

Waystones are one-shotting me too. No matter how slow I go... no matter what I do. Something will get me, eventually. Getting pinned by a mob that jumps behind me in a choke-point, getting sniped by a ranged mob, an after-death explosion when I try to pick something (Unfortunately, loot dropping in this game can be ultra-punishing instead of exciting), or I just plain make a mistake. I've gone VERY slow. Realizing the high risks. Trying my best to pull a single mob at a time when possible (which, if end-game is really intended to be this risky, it's a terrible game design, period - I'm hoping it's just a me/gear problem that won't always be the case). Even so, I've bricked 6 stones so far out of 8. and Now I'm about to run out of waystones alltogether. I've not gained a level, I've not gained any upgrades in gear. I've lost several hours of my life with nothing to show for it, but that is not the problem. The problem is there no clear path to improving my character to the point that the "ENTRY LEVEL" content is doable any time soon. Basically, even if my character build/gear/skill is the issue; I don't think I can fix my situation even if I wanted to.

At this point the game is just not going to be for me if this sweaty "death is both always emminant and catastrophic" is the intended game design. Personally, I like that the devs want players to feel in danger, it's the right mind-set. But deaths can't be too punishing as a passenger to that design philosophy - that's what hardcore is for.

Other ways deaths are too punishing and why it's a problem:
I'll never forget the time I went to pick up a unique item after killing a rare mob only to get blown up by after-death effects and the entire map respawned, and removed my unique. This happened for an exalted orb as well - after which, I promptly logged off and went to bed infuriated. I've learned my lesson since then and after seeing phat loot drop I paranoidally wait around for 10+ seconds before attempting to pick it up...

Why is this a problem? Gear dropping is supposed to be a dopamine hit, and if you have to twiddle your thumbs for 10 seconds and even feel anxiety when loot drops ("it's a trap!") then it flies in the face of feeling good about loot drops, and loot drops are the core attraction of dungeon/arpgs. Devs... please don't leave it like this. After-death 1shots are not fun on their own, but I have been able to laugh about it in other games. In PoE2 it's both not fun, and not funny. If deaths must respawn monsters, leave the loot on the ground, bad enough you'll have to fight your way back to it.

And the last thing: If deaths are punishing, then they need to only happen when players make mistakes. You tried to address getting cornered/pinned by monsters the other day by making dodge-roll have colision size of 0, but that was a half-measure. Walking through a choke point that is clear, to have a mob come out of the ground behind you, or jump behind you, making it impossible to move, is NOT FUN if you can't do anything about it. Games should be about moves and counter moves. If you get pinned and DONT dodge out, you deserve death. If the game just puts you in a no-win situation regardless of your actions, though, that's something else. As a side note, the way it works now is not even that TERRIBLE of an idea if not for the execution. I don't know how many times my character is not moving, when I can clearly see a path out. collision sizes, in general, are just way bigger than they should be, or terrain clipping is too unforgiving.

I forgot to post a couple solutions I thought might help:

For waystone deaths being too punishing:
1. Waystones already have a limited amount of return portals, make it so a death consumes one.
2. A death can respawn all monsters, rather than brick it all-together. A do-over is not fun imo, but it's a good compromise.
3. Refund a white waystone if failing a bottom tier waystone traverse?

For after-death explosions killing people for simply (and excitedly) trying to collect hard-earned loot:
1. Drastically increase the loot pickup range of characters? I don't really see a reason loot has to be melee range pickupable other than role-play "my arms are only so long" reasons. But why not "everyone has a telekenesis ability to pick up items, specifically" built-in to the game?

Add to another death/brick scenario:

A room was clear, I click on a "Lever". The leaver takes 2 seconds annimation to complete and locks my character. In those 2 seconds, a mob jumps from another room and kills me while I can do nothing to stop it. Waystone bricked.

Entered "willow" open map, entry point is surrounded by mobs in all directions, not even a safe starting spot. Instantly bricked. Waystones completely gone now. No clue what to do. Sitting here holding my head. This game had so much potential to be this terrible at the end. Heart-breaking.

I wish i could help beyond check your resistances and defences. Respec some passives if needed.
Remember to check vendors for loot annd try to use orbs to craft gear from white/blue base items.
etc.
Also its EA so there might be some balance issues still.
I feel your pain. Iv hit a brick wall in games that seems impossible.
Not in endgame in poe2 yet. No time to play until weekend.