The sad thing is, except for some really bad map rolls that I should have just rerolled, I can mostly steamroll the maps I'm doing (up to tier 8/9), because all it takes is some trash at the beginning for me to generate a bunch of dudes and then I just run around and let them kill shit, occasionally refreshing them. My weapon makes them even more awesome, because it has the all skills supported by multistrike and ancestral calling mods. I don't think ancestral works with them, but they for sure get multistrike, and I have a melee splash support too that they get, so they just mow through mobs and even named for me. But when I have to start from scratch (Incursion, for example), and if I can't kill some trash myself with my low dps, I'm fucked. And the motherfucking Syndicate faggots beeline/jump smash/teleport straight to me even if I intentionally let all my dudes AND a full level 20 vaal skeletons (that I put on a ring for kicks) loose on them before I even did anything but beat the fucking door down. Most everything else focuses on my minions if I don't aggro first, but not those fucks.
Right now I'm really doing nothing BUT farming for xp/gear/currency, and I still die enough that the xp part is rough, and I'm not high enough in map tier, apparently, to get any drops really worth a shit. 99% of all the uniques I get are not only low level for some reason (req level, not ilvl), but shit tier as well. I did buy up gear that I needed to fix my resists and add more life, bought a belly of the beast too that was close to max rolls but just under (and thus much cheaper), etc. I know more money would make me even better, but meh, I still can't fight my way out of a wet paper bag if I'm stranded all alone when I zone in, and if a pack of blues is sitting there, I'm probably dead. It's just an inherent flaw of the build I think, and I don't have the gear or experience to counteract it.
I just feel like I'm spinning my wheels trying to get better, and it is getting boring/frustrating because I die just enough to erase most of my xp progress. And, it isn't the play style I think I want to play to endgame anyway. I've watched elder fights, and not that I think I'd even get to him this league, but I can't imagine running out of dudes during that fight and trying to make more while dodging all the shit I'm supposed to dodge.
TL;DR - So what is everyone's favorite jugg build that won't cost me a ton to get into? I am aware of the various league starter builds the popular YouTubers have put out, but I'm looking for people that are actually playing it. I've got 1 exalted that I just found last night, and about 100 chaos. I'd prefer not to spend all that for gear, but I can spend a decent chunk I guess. It isn't going to get me any uber gear I know, but something decent.
(Oh, and I see mention of shaping my atlas all the time. No fucking clue how that even works, and I feel I should know at least a little by now since that growing blob on my map is apparently related.)