Leveling with bone spells

Guys, i am not a very good player, i don't try to build op endgame builds or even get there, i am playing HC SSF and i try to wrap my hear around witch with physical casting.

What am i doing horribly wrong, that it feels so extremely bad? Last witch died to Colossus by a disconnect, not the first disconnect but the first one where i came back dead. Happens, that's part of the game. But she kept dying, there is just not enough damage. At level 26, i am running Bonestorm with Scattershot and Ricochet, because then at least the shards connect to mobs. Then i die to the snakebosslady in Keth, because i am simply not doing any damage. Bonecage, which could be a lot of DPS, i have spellecho in, which should boost damage nicely and spell cascade because then the thing usually hits several times. Still no damage. When you obtail bonestorm, it absolutely murders bosses, now a few levels later and i can't say it does anymore, not sure how other classes, even ranged, fare, but the gameplay is very much D4 grind again. Even with scattershot and ricochet, i am now hitting 14-15 shards into a monster in quick time, but even white trash takes it incredibly well to the chin. So you stand there and channel this stuff over and over until a whole pack is dead. Especially if they don't come all swarming you, it's so fucking annoying to get everyone.

Considering there is basically no immediate damage boosts from the passive tree with crit being a really, really slow ramp up to one day be maybe glorious, i feel without +5 to skills and insane damage rolls on wand and shield, the base damage is just too bad for the utility.

I have tried Astral Projection to get mobs already at distance, if i need to cast 5- 10 times until a white big beetle in Keth dies, the damage is too low.

So, what am i doing wrong. The consensus seems to be that Bone Cage is really decent for clearing and Bonestorm is amazing for Bosses. I have on my current setup +1 to phsyical spells and like 20% spell damage. I know this is insanely bad, but what is GGG expecting the player to have at this stage? I get 49% increased spell damage from the tree going for Raw Destruction to Jagged Shards and from now one i will basically only get crit. 10% crit chance at the start gives 1.5% more damage. Great. I understand that if you invest fully into crit chance and crit damage, this will become a better and better investment, but i need damage now. And it's not like 2 times the damage would make this feel inherently much better. It feels more like 3 or 4 times the damage would put this even remotely close to for instance a run of the mill Essence Drain/Contagion/DecyingHex Build, just that that one does not ever need to slow down to take damage.

Bone Cage has a DPS of 132 at level 8 with Astral Projection and Spell Cascade. Sick. Essence Drain LVL 6 is 60 DPS dot with Swift Affliction, but zero investment in the tree. And it auto distributes to mobs with contagion and Unearth Crawlers. Is there a level where the build starts to become better because the investment into crit finally takes off? Detonate dead would help the clear i guess, but you still need to kill something first.

Let me clarify what i am asking. Is this the normal difficulty curve with really shitty equipment and bone stuff is a bit harsher because the passive tree needs time to become better, or is the only upside to bone spells that they become awesome later and therefore it is okay if they really suck at the early game for general purpose, because Bone Storm can be great at boss murdering, not denying that.

Bonestorm is good damage, that is not the issue. But, at that point you should have at least +3 to spells, preferably +4.

2 from wand, 1 from focus, 1 from amulet. Or 3 from staff, and 1 from amulet.

With any spell build, keeping up the + levels are a must, otherwise you are way behind.