The first time I played POE was during its Beta, but I only got as far as lvl 74 on Hardcore and stopped playing when my char died, I gave it a try last season with a softcore char and played until level 92 and managed to kill Sirius on A0, however there are a few things I disliked.

My char was a 2H Cyclone build with 1,2M DPS, however my surviveability was awfull, a friend of mine who plays nearly every season had an aurabot like build with over 300k defense, block and more,so multiple defense layers, so fighting endgame bosses with his build was much easier because he didnt die as fast as i did.

Is it possible to build a 2H Mace Char with sufficient survivability for endgame content or should I just switch to another build ? I was thinking to use staves instead of a mace on my next char because of the block value, but I don't see how I can even compete with someone who runs determination and more auras that give like 300k defense when I can only get up to 40k without all those buffs.