Don't nerf incoming damage, instead give us more defense on the skill tree

Basically title. There have been a lot of complaints about damages being overtuned from multiple sources. From one shots, to on death effects, to burning ground, etc.

Instead of going through and adjusting each and every one of these, how about instead making defensive options more accessible on the skill tree?

For instance, I understand having no life nodes near all of the energy shield ones. If you're starting point is near the energy shield upgrades, you're probably stacking that and your total health pool feels pretty good.

But the other sides of the tree could probably use some love. I think the goal should be for most non ES builds to be able to easily get up to 3-4k life, with higher amounts also being more accessible with a heavier commitment to it. That would help much more than constant damage reduction of everything else.

Also, adding more resistances to the tree would be nice. At the very least, adding more ways to increase max resistances, to help with damage mitigation.

Overall, the only defensive options that feel good for characters are ES stacking or Mana stacking. I play two highly defensive characters, and I can tell you damage amounts feel fair when you have enough defense. So my guess is that you expected people to go further than they are to ensure they get good defenses. They're clearly not, so make it a bit easier for them to choose to do that.

I get your point, but putting "Life" nodes on the tree would be basically a nerf to all builds in this area. They had to drop many points they used for damage and utility only to get more life.
They could technically just add "Life" to already existing nodes on top, but that would increase the "power per point" to the moon and create a heavy imbalance.
I think it would be better to drastically buff "Life" outside the tree. Give the "Life mods" on items incredible values and/or add even bases with percentage implicits, add good "Life" jewels, whatever...

That would be counterproductive compared to GGG's stated intent for the skill tree. PoE 1's focus was heavily on travel to defensive nodes, taking a bunch of those, and then sticking some points in your build's related damage nodes.

When every player has to do a specific thing, or select a specific node, player agency and choice is completely diminished.

In all honesty, I think the bigger question is who the game is ultimately for. If it's the average player, they should take an average of defenses at each major point in the game and balance around those benchmarks.

Instead GGG typically balances around whatever extreme top 0.1% build is released, which leaves the players struggling with even fewer options. Just adding new nodes isn't really going to fix that.

PoE 2 IMO is having an identity crisis. They're struggling with who their target market and core audience are, and with how to best build around it. "Isometric Dark Souls" probably sounded great on paper, but...

Said it before and I’ll say it again.
Add life into the existing +armor and +armor/evasion nodes. Maybe a little less on the latter.
And especially for the blood magic notable.