I am playing an Eye of Winter Occultist and I honestly really enjoy it. But I mainly struggle with defenses on this character. I have reshuffled my Passive Tree a few times now. I tried Glancing Blows with a Life on Block Shield, but i had to sacrifice alot of Life to get the Block nodes.

In terms of Main Links, I tried Pinpoint with Apex Mode Jewel, which was fine. I tried Badge of Brotherhood and ice Bite, but I didnt like losing Life on my Amulet and it just didnt feel right. Also I dont know how to keep up frenzy on bosses.

Right now I am playing with Unleash and the three Unleash nodes below the power charge nodes and it feels really nice. With a Life gain on Spell hit ring, this is a pretty good recovery option. Overall the damage is also fine.

With 5.7k Life and freezing and chilling everything, plus having Blind on my Gloves, I still feel terribly squishy in tougher situations and get lots of one-shots.

Many use the Snake Bite Ring for Chain, but I sadly dont have it (SSF). So i went for Pierce Boots, which seems good too. Clear is overall pretty good anyways. Its really just my defenses that I Struggle with. But the Tree is super dense and I feel like every single point is well spent.

So I was wondering how others build their characters. Ive seen some Hybrid Life/ES builds but I dont know how these feel to play.

This is my POB: https://pastebin.com/bYdKrtua