I'm not pro casual but some thoughts...

I get that you want the game to mean something, combat to mean something, and mechanics are meant to be respected.

However, as a long time arpg veteran going back to 1996, after two acts of having to basically play this game like a souls like, act 3 Chimera is one dodge roll heavy fight too far.

I respect the Chimera. I'm aware he's hardly one of the hardest fights of the game. But for someone who is lucky to have maybe two hours a day for gaming, having to wipe on a boss 4 or 5 times as I learn the mechanics, only to find I'm under leveled even though I'm above level for the zone, is deflating.

I'm aware of the git guds and skill issue responses I'll probably get, but after about halfway through act 2, the game falls off hard for me.

I spent a day leveling so I could get the skill points to beat Jamanra, and act 3 just kind of sucks with the never ending waves in the beginning and just lack of... Motivating the player to loot chase or power grind.

After Jamanra, I have zero desire to strike once, roll, strike once, roll, etc like on the gorilla. And it seems going forward, the bosses are designed this way.

I don't mean to cheapen your thoughts process or ideology, but if you are interested in growing beyond your hardcore elite players, you might want to rethink the philosophy of making the campaign such a souls like for certain classes.

Not all of us platinumed Wukong or Demon's Souls.

Respectfully,

Someone who's been playing arpg games since the genre was invented.

Sounds like you may need to improve your defenses, especially resistances. Crafting or buying upgrades from vendors or other players on the trade site might help.

Case in point I played with a friend against the act 2 final boss, I encouraged him to max out his lightning resist and he did so. I went down in phase 2 and he was able to just tank the boss to victory. He was a warrior with abysmal DPS. It took him forever. He generally didn't respect mechanics.

Sounds like this game may not be for you. And that's okay. I'm 38 and had to retire from escape from tarkov a year ago. Had to admit that I just couldn't cut it anymore.

You’re overestimating the amount of skill needed in this game. It’s 80% gear check.

Did you destroy the pillar the chimera is on? Because the fight gets a lot simpler when its on the ground prone for half the time

I generally can feel for most people struggling with bosses, but Chimera?

Nah, he's a punching bag. As soon as he jumps onto the pillars, you break them, and hes stunned, then you wail on him, and stun him again, rinse repeat till he's dead, hes legitmately a braindead boss.

If hes giving you that much trouble you really need to sit down and evaluate your build, because he's one of the easiest fights in the entire game, hes handed to you on a silver platter.

As someone has said, it’s GRINDING gear games. It only felt like a souls game on day 1 because no one had currency no one had gear to sell to trade and now we all have full sets of leveling gear to change every few levels along the way. I never dodge rolled in my life again for all my alts after I got that chainy unique crossbow heck I even vaaled the future ones cause two sockets ain’t fast enough any more.

By not trading for gear upgrades you are essentially self imposing difficulty which is respectable in some vector, since that’s pretty much SSF.

The thing is, the original post is kinda right.
The issue is the character build, which requires more defense focus. BUT in a game so complex as PoE 2, there is no way a new player would understand the meaning of "you're in Act 2 now, congrats! -10% all res". I generally think GGG should do a better job showing or explaining to a player the weak spots of his build. For example, I love the Forgemaster fight. It is basically a timer that forces you to maximize your DPS to pass it. Something similar should be done for the defenses IMO.

Have no idea how to explain to a player, that, yeah you get a new gear, great! But now you have a 20% less Evasion rating and your "increase evasion" passive nods have effectively lost 20% of their value, so you might want to switch to Energy Shield instead. Or something like "Well, you use Attacks, so THE MOST important thing to Attacks is an item that you equip in your character's weapon slot". So your issue might be JUST get a better mace or something.

I mean, there are surely balance issues with mace skills, warrior survivability, crafting (not confused with gambling), and so on. It will get better over time. At least I hope so. What GGG seems to have missed is that there is no "direction" to guide you as a noob. Except for the forums and other 3rd party tools. I don't think that there should be obvious solutions given, but at least give a big hint in the descriptions. Maybe make the main point of each system in a bold font or something. Because when you hover to "attack"... Well, if I were to be a new player, I might had gotten lost over time with all the in-game stuff. And when there is no solution (as I can see) and I'm stuck, I just would drop the game.